Day 6 of 31 Stories - Butlers and Housekeepers #502

So now I'm two days behind, and this one was a struggle. Well, it's better than no words, even if I'm not hugely happy with it personally, and with luck I'll be able to come back to something I enjoy more tomorrow. Here's day 6 - Butlers and Housekeepers #502

She wasn't sure how she'd managed to fall into a role of leadership in the union, but here she was. She'd only joined the union, originally the Scullery Maids United, back when she first started in her first job of service, because her mother had always told her to join a union if one was offered. It helped with her pay, since staff were guaranteed a basic minimum, even if there were some households that refused to hire union labor. She'd heard stories from some of her friends who'd ended up working in those households about how they treated their servants, and she was grateful that she had help from the union to find jobs that followed union rules. She doubted she would have made it through those first few years, especially with that first "gentleman" and his wandering ways, if it hadn't been for the union.

It had just made sense, then, to keep active with the union, to keep going to the local meetings and speaking up about the needs of her neighborhood, and slowly she'd become known as someone who paid attention, someone who cared about the other people in her area who also served, and someone who was willing to fight for everyone to have the rights they were promised. Before long, she was leading meetings, making a name for herself and taking people to task as they needed to be, and people knew who she was. She'd never intended to become someone who was important; she'd wanted to keep her head down and just do her job, but somehow, somewhere along the lines, that stopped being something she could do.

That's probably how she ended up here, in the cellar of some old building, tied to a chair in the dark. She'd been on her way to a meeting, when she'd ended up with a hood over her head and several pairs of hands manhandling her into the back of a car she hadn't seen or heard coming up behind her until it was too late. They'd done it in broad daylight, too, the very cheek - they could have waited until after the meeting, when it was dark, the way a civilized villain would have done. But no, she was plucked off the street by some common vandal, and now she sat, in the dark, alone, waiting to find out why they'd taken her and what they were going to do with her. She tested the bonds on her hands again, just to see if they'd somehow loosened since the last time she'd checked, but they'd been unforgivably rude and stayed stubbornly tight against her wrists.

A door opened directly across from her chair, light flooding into the room and blinding her. She flinched involuntarily, but refused to give them the satisfaction of looking away. "I don't know why you're bothering with such tactics," she stated in her iciest tone. "Trying to scare me won't do you any good. All you'll be doing is causing more trouble for yourself when I'm found and the constabulary take you into custody. Now stop being silly and let me free, and I may put in a good word for you." She kept her posture as perfectly erect as she could, considering her placement against the chair, and glared in the general direction of the silhouette in the doorway.

There was no response that she could hear, only a muffled cry as someone was thrust into the room and the door was slammed shut once again. She waited, listening to the belabored breathing of whoever had been dumped unceremoniously into her cell, and heard the turn of a key in the door and the fading footsteps moving away from the room. There was no light coming through the cracks around the door anymore, so whatever light source had accompanied her captor had been removed as well.

The breathing of her new companion had changed from a struggling gasping for air to a stifled sob, and she closed her eyes to brace herself. It would figure that, if she was to be kidnapped, she would have to share a room and, potentially, a fate with a sniveling child. She counted backwards from ten, giving the newcomer an opportunity to pull themselves together, before she said anything. At the end of her count, the sobs had subsided to a disgusting sniffling noise, which was even worse. She couldn't hold back any longer.

"Oh, do get up and help me out of this chair, and stop that sniveling." Her voice still held the tones of command, even as she had lowered the volume so she wouldn't be heard by those standing guard outside the room. She was under no delusion that they had left her alone after locking her into the room; after all, if she had kidnapped someone, she would make sure to leave guards behind. It only made sense.

The response to her order was something of a surprise. She heard a gasp, and the sound of cloth rustling as though someone were rummaging through their pockets. The sniffling had stopped, at least, for which she was grateful, but she would be even more so if the person would get themselves off the floor and over to her chair, where they could do something useful. The sound of a nose being blown into (she hoped) a handkerchief destroyed any hope for stealth, but it gave her an idea of where her new companion was in the room as they began to move around.

"Mrs. McCormac? Can that really be you?" The voice came from much closer than she anticipated, and only the ropes holding her so tightly against the chair kept her from leaping in surprise. The voice came as a whisper, which she couldn't quite place, but it was familiar, and that gave her some modicum of hope. She heard the other person's breathing as they moved behind her, and she felt the ropes around her wrists being traced gently as the person determined where the knots where and how they were tied.

"Yes, that's me," she said in return, dropping her voice not quite to a whisper, but to an even lower volume than before. "And I'll thank you very much for getting me out of this predicament if you can, as I don't seem able to handle it myself at the moment. To whom do I owe the pleasure?"

"I'm surprised you don't recognize me, Mrs. McCormac," the whisper said, having moved to stand directly behind her now. They began working on the knot that held her hands together, and she could feel a few pinches as the rope bent and twisted under the stranger's fingers. "Then again, I guess you didn't get a good look at me. I'm glad I found you, though. The members of the union were getting really worried about you, when you didn't show up for the meeting."

"Yes, well, as you see, I was a bit indisposed," she replied, fighting the urge to attempt to help her companion pull at the ropes. She knew that anything she did right then might have the reverse impact on freeing her hands, but she had never been one to sit idly by while work needed to be done. "So you came looking for me, did you? How did you find me?"

"We received a message, saying that these people had you, and they needed one of us to come and pay your ransom before they would release you. We put together the money, and I volunteered to come out here, but of course, they double-crossed us. They were never intending to let you go, and I suppose they decided that I was too much of a liability, as well. Thus, here I am."

She twisted in her chair as far as the ropes would allow her, trying to get a look at the shape of her companion's face. There was no light coming into the room, of course, so it wasn't as though actually looking at them would have helped her see, but she felt as though it were necessary either way. "Ransom? Who demanded ransom for me? And who paid it?" She was geniunely curious as to how much she was worth in this situation, but felt that it wasn't a question a lady would ask. Still, a ransom, like something out of a penny dreadful! It was nothing to sneeze at, that was certain.

"The union paid it, and we're still not sure who demanded it," the whisper continued as they patiently worked on the knot at her wrists. "They just said that the union was getting to be too big and powerful, and that no, ah, well, no woman of your standing should be able to demand an audience with any peers of the realm." She could almost hear a blush forming on the unseen face of her co-inmate, at she could only imagine what words were actually used to describe her and the ways in which she demanded attention from those best positioned to provide service to the union. She gave a deep sigh, resigned once again to the idea that she would always have a stigma to her status.

Suddenly, her wrists were free, and the tension that released felt like a flood in her arms and wrists. She was able to move her hands around to her front, and she began massaging them, working the blood back into her fingertips and trying to shake away the pins and needles feeling that came rushing in. "My thanks," she said, allowing her relief to carry on her voice. "Now what do we do?"

Her guard was down; that was the only reason she could give herself for what happened next. She was so certain that the person thrown into the room with her had been sent to rescue her, and had released her hands in order to help her, that it didn't occur to her that something else could be afoot. That was why she didn't notice, until it was too late, that the voice that whispered to her didn't sound like someone who had been sobbing; that the person's breath came back to them far too easily for one who had been panting heavily upon landing in the room; that the person had been able to find her in the room, in the pitch black, when she'd only spoken once. There hadn't even been the slightest hint of confusion around where she might be - the voice had simply gone from sniffling somewhere in front of her to whispering next to her ear in the blink of an eye. But by the time she noticed all of this, it was too late.

Five minutes after throwing him into the room, his employers came back with a dark lantern to see what progress he'd made. His face stood in sharp contrast against the woman's dark blue dress, as he carried her over his shoulder and out of the room. "Well?"

"She won't be a problem anymore," he replied, and his voice was clear and high with no trace of accent or tears. He was a professional, after all, and emotion was weakness in his line of work. "I'll take her back out to the road, make sure the constables find her and report her incident. I expect my fee to be waiting for me."

"Of course. We appreciate your work." The man with the lantern moved aside, and Mrs. McCormac's head bounced down the hall toward the door. The problem was solved in the end.

Day 5 of 31 Stories - Superhero Dispatch

Still playing catch up from missing a day last week, but I'm getting there. We watched the new Suicide Squad movie earlier tonight, which may have sparked an idea or two. Enjoy day 5 - Superhero Dispatch.

People think the superhero gig is all sunshine and roses, saving the day and fighting the bad guys. Everything's black and white, no body is every unsure of themselves or concerned about whether or not they're doing the "right" thing or doing it the "right" way or for the "right" reasons. Anybody who doesn't see things as clearly one way or another is obviously a villain, because nothing can be a gray area if the only thing you see is the light of truth, right?

What a crock. Nine times out of ten, we're not saving "the world," we're saving the ass of the person who's willing to pay the most. And yeah, a lot of times, those people are the ones trying to make the world a little less awful, but most of the time it's because they've realized how badly they screwed things up in the past, and now they're trying to make amends or something. It's like they've suddenly realized that everything can and will become public, so they're trying to shine up their image before word of all their nasty little backroom dealings comes to light.

Sorry. I can be a little cynical, I know - it's hard not to be when you spend most of your days figuring out who to dispatch to watch situation, and determine if the "right" side (there's that word again) has the proper authority and/or the proper currency to have us deal with it. Like everyone else who starts out in the main office, I came in with stars in my eyes and a song in my heart, and it didn't take long for the stars to fade and the song to turn into a marching cadence.

When you see the superheroes in the news, you never think that there's a whole bunch of bureaucracy pulling the strings in the background, do you? Nah, it always looks like they just show up where they're needed, like they have some kind of sixth sense to tell them where there's trouble. Well, that sixth sense is us - Dispatch. We take in the information from around the sector, we distill it, have analysts that determine what the best return on investment is, and we send them out into the world to save it. Well, save the specific part of the world that we deem worth saving this go-round.

The first few weeks of training are always the hardest, because that's when we have to break the newbies down. They have to learn really quickly that they can't save everybody, and it's not worth burning themselves and the superheroes out trying to. It's heartbreaking, it really is, the first time you see them make a call - deciding which job is worth sending the best to, and which won't even get the third-stringers. No one likes to see their local town get wiped off the map because a storm went in a direction we couldn't have predicted, but sometimes, even our analysts get it wrong. We work with the information we have at our hands, and we do our best with it.

At least we don't have to deal with all the crap the poor folks in the government have to contend with. We at least get to work off of what will help or hurt the most people, generally - we don't have to account for the political bull that can make blowing up a city full of people an acceptable loss. On my worst days, I'm not sending a crew of super-powered people to blow up the only factory that provides work in a town. We might end up taking down the owner of that factory if it turns out they've been polluting the groundwater or something, true, but at least with that we have teams that come in afterwards to try and kickstart the economy with other, less eco-deadly methods. We leave them with options, is what I'm saying.

I sound defensive, I know. And I am. I'm not going to lie - sometimes, missions go wrong. Sometimes, our intelligence isn't as good as we want it to be, and we send the wrong people, and people get hurt or die. Not every superhero is created equal - anyone who's read a single comic book or watched even one episode of a TV show about superheroes knows that sometimes you get the guy who can leap tall buildings and deflect bullets, and sometimes you get the guy who can talk to fish. Both useful, but in very different (and sometimes, extremely limited) circumstances.

I try not to get too close to them. I don't have any powers of my own, other than a little bit of bureaucromancy, and that's more learned than innate. As far as the average superhero is concerned, I'm nothing more than a fragile bit of potential collateral damage, so they obviously aren't going to invest much time or effort in me. I get it. I mean, I hate it, because I get to know them from the inside out, with the access to all their medical records and files and backgrounds, but I get that they don't see me as worth the risk. I try to see it as a way that they're protecting me from them, because everyone knows that superheroes that have people they love out in the open are just asking for villains to kill those people.

So, I try to stay out of the way. I keep my cool, keep my distance, make sure they don't see anything that would make the world notice me. I know that the superheroes know who is taking care of them, and that they appreciate me - us, I mean. They appreciate us, as a team. We get some pretty good gifts for Administrative Professionals day, I'll tell you that. It's not a bad thing, to work for some superheroes who are loaded. They can afford to shell out for some pretty hefty gift cards, if nothing else. And sometimes they'll cater lunch, or, well, have us order lunch and put it on their expense reports, you know, because they're a little busy saving whatever part of the world needs saving that day. You can't expect superheroes to order their own lunch, right? Talk about a little beneath them.

But I know. I know that they appreciate what I do for them, making sure that their costumes have all the little extras taken care of - every seam double-stitched, every pocket and pouch lined to make it water- or air-tight as needed, all the various potions and capsules and the like labelled in the way that they find easiest to detect in the dark. And sure, it might not be exactly part of my official job description, but it's those little extras that make you good at the job, right? They're what show your bosses that you love what you do, and going above and beyond is how you move up in the world. So I give them the best information that I can, and I send flowers to the appropriate parties if things go wrong, because I want to make sure we look like we have a heart. We have to be people-oriented, of course, otherwise people won't want the superheroes to come save them. 

And if I happen to add a little bit extra to their info packets, telling them about a good taco place I know in the area or some neat little touristy shop they might want to stop by - after the mission, of course - then what's the harm in that? I know what the superheroes like, and I know better than anyone that they don't really get a chance to take vacations. So why not give them a chance to turn a work trip into a mini-vacation now and then? Nothing wrong with mixing a little bit of fun with the work, right?

Sometimes, they even bring back something for me. Well, for the team, but you know, I'm the one that told them where the tourist shop was, or where they can find a little street market that sells authentic, hand-made scarves and such, and I have seniority, so you know, it's addressed to the team, but I know who it's for. I share, though! I always make sure my team is taken care of. Just like the superheroes make sure I'm taken care of.

I don't get too close, of course. But I know. And they know that I know. They know I'm watching, and whenever they decide it's worth the risk, they know I'm here. Just like I know where they are. I always know where they are. I sent them there, after all. They trust me to know where the best place to send them is. They know I won't steer them wrong. And I know that they trust me.

I know. 

Day 4 of 31 Stories - By the Sea

As you can see, I'm currently a story behind. Yesterday was extremely slow going, so I didn't manage to finish the story until today. I'm hoping to get caught up this weekend, but we'll see! In the meantime, for something completely different, enjoy day 4 - By the Sea

I managed to make my way to the surface just ahead of Alea, which was one of the few times I'd managed it. "Ha!" I cheered, spinning in a circle when I saw her head pop up from under the water. "I beat you, I beat you, I beat you!" My tail countered my upper body as I did my happy dance around her in the sea.

"Are you quite finished?" Her tone was mild, but I could see the glimmer of a smile on the edge of her face. She didn't let me win - she would never do that, her pride would never let her - but she could appreciate the effort and joy that I had put into beating her, and it warmed my heart to see her notice the work I'd put in. I had been training more recently, trying to get faster with my arms and tail, trying to catch up with the rest of my pod, and finally, it looked like I wasn't the last one left anymore.

I did one more spin to show off my extra dexterity (it had taken weeks for me to get the balance right, get the spin just perfect and not end up falling back into the sea with my mouth filled with water again), and then I smirked. "Yeah, I'm done." I swam closer to her. "OK, now what?"

"Now, we wait," she replied, moving toward the shore. When she got to the shallows, she kept moving, tail changing into legs until she was walking upright by the time she reached the dry sand. She put her hand on the spot where her tail had met her body, now the place she called her hip, and called out to me. "Are you coming, or not?"

I should have known. I'd gotten better at swimming, and was finally doing well enough to keep up with the pod and breathe air on command, so now she wanted me to move to the next pool and walk. I'd tried getting my tail to transform a few times, but it hadn't worked before. She had said that it was because I was under water, that it wouldn't work until I was breathing air and moving on land, but once I was doing those things, it would move naturally, like everything else. I glanced around, but fortunately, the sheltered cove we'd entered was empty of everyone but the two of us. At least no one else would see my failure.

I swam to the shore, and forced myself to keep moving once my tail felt the first bits of floating seaweed. The floor of the sea here was so much rougher, so much more changed by the passage of time and the churning of rocks and birds and animals, that it didn't feel like the same ocean I knew. I winced as my flukes first started to drag across the rough pebbles and sharp, broken shells that hadn't yet been worn down to a smooth dullness with the tumbling of the waves. I kept my eyes on her as I kept moving forward.

It happened so fast, I almost didn't catch it. One moment, my flukes were starting to feel tight, warm, as though I had an illness, and the scales were beginning to itch against the sand. An instant later, my flukes were gone; in their place, something that I hadn't felt before but somehow still felt like me. They were warm, and covered with the same scale-free skin that my arms and chest had, but without any of the toughness borne of long days and nights swimming against heavy tides and bathing in the sun that streaked down beneath the sea's surface. They bent both like and unlike my arms, and ended in things that were and weren't hands.

My startled shout caught her attention, and she came out to the edge of the water, close to me but not quite in the water again. "It's all right, beloved," she called, her voice floating on the breeze. "Keep coming toward me, and your legs will know what to do. It's as simple as breathing, as easy as loving me." She gave me the crooked smile that stole my heart every time I saw it, and instinctively I continued my journey toward her.

The water fell away from me, and I had a moment of sheer terror as I felt the air against the part of my body where my tail normally began. It felt wrong, and harsh, like a knife cutting me in half, but it wasn't as bad as seeing her move away from me. She kept taking steps back, beckoning to me, and I followed her. The fear of letting her go was greater than my fear of losing half of myself, and so I followed.

The sand under the edge of the water was rough, but it was nothing compared to the sand just beyond the water. The ends of my legs, these not-hands that I still didn't recognize as my own, caught on the rocks and shells that no longer had the water to soften them, and I found that the parts of me that I hadn't know were still capable of feeling the pain I always had known. If anything, the pain was greater, as it came from a place I didn't understand, and I didn't know how long it would last or if there would be more of it when it finally did fade away. I learned quickly, however, that touching some parts of the sand didn't cause the same kind of pain, and so I started to avoid the spots that caused more pain and to pay more attention to where my not-hands touched the sand.

Still, through everything, she stood in front of me, her hand outstretched, just beyond my reach. She kept moving backwards, displaying a grace that seemed magical to my eyes - not only could she move with these legs, but she could do so without watching where she placed her not-hands. I briefly wondered how many times she had stumbled out of the water here, and if she had done so with others before me. Would she do so again, after I was gone? Now was not the time to worry.

With a final lurch, I managed to throw myself in her direction and trusted her to catch me before my entire body landed on the too-hot, too-dry sand. Sand should never be so dry, so harsh, so gritty; sand is the cushion upon which we sleep, the soil in which our gardens grow, the foundations of our homes and lives. Such dry, crumbling stuff as this would be useless for anything we would need; surely it couldn't be the same thing as what lived under the water with us.

She caught me, of course - I knew she would. Leaning, she maneuvered us back into a reclining position, where she sat directly on the harsh not-sand and I leaned against her almost completely. I finally looked as these legs that had taken the place of my tail, and I was torn between fascination and revulsion. The skin was fish-belly white, with tiny streaks of dark lines the color of my hair scattered across them. Tentatively, I ran a hand over one, and shuddered to feel the streaks raise against my fingers. The dry not-sand clung to the skin, making it itch and raising tiny red spots where ever it had been brushed away. Curling my hand into a claw, I reached to scratch at the itch, and she grabbed my wrist, stopping me.

"It will hurt, if you do that," she said mildly. "It may draw blood, because the skin is fragile, but you don't know that yet. Leave it for now. The next time, we will have something here to brush the sand away from our legs, so we don't hurt ourselves. For now, rest, and look." She pointed over my shoulder, out in the direction of the water we'd left.

I tore my eyes away from my legs, from my love, and followed her direction to the sky. There, the most magnificent changes were happening. The sky, which had been a bright white-blue when we first surfaced, had gotten darker, and in the time it had taken me to get to the sand, to my love, it had changed colors. It was pink, with streaks of dark purple and blue, and the sun was no longer visible anywhere. I was used to not being able to see the sun, of course, but never when we broke the surface. The sky had never looked like this before when I was in the air, and even as I watched, the sky kept changing.

Now there was orange, and red, as though one of the dangerous coral had somehow grown large enough to blot out the horizon. No fish swam around it, however, and from one blink to the next, it had changed again. Now it was more purple, more blue, and the bright pinks and oranges were fading toward the bottom of the sky, reflecting off the surface of the water. I had seen the water used to reflect small things before, but never the entire sky! And yet, here it was, doubling the colors in a reversed order, and still, the sky changed further. Now the purples were fading into grays, and the blues to a deep, inky black. Within that black, however, there were tiny spots of white - small points of discrete brightness against the darkness. Another blink, and the colors of the sky were gone, leaving only the black, and the spots of white.

I began to speak, and she put her finger to my lips. "Lie back with me and look up," she said, stretching out on the strange not-sand. "Just for a moment. We can go back soon." I looked on in confusion, and she gave me that smile again, and ran her hand down my arm.

I never could deny her anything. I lay down next to her, trying to ignore the strange texture under my back and failing, until she pointed up. "Look!" Once again, I followed her, and then it felt as though everything was different.

Hanging above us, as though they would fall at any second, were thousands - no, millions - of the white spots I'd noticed before. They'd multiplied when I looked away, and covered the black sky so thickly that it was impossible to think it was dark any longer. How could it be, with so many bright points in the sky?

Her hand fell back to her chest, and we both kept staring up at the sky, watching as more and more spots appeared. They seemed to start moving after a fashion, groups of them slowly dancing around each other over our heads. Though I couldn't hear any music, I was certain that they could, and all of their rhythms were expressed in this slow, steady dance. Without taking my eyes off of the sky, I reached for my love and took her hand, the one she had used to point to the changing sky, the one she had used to beckon me onto the dry land.

She entwined her fingers in mine, and we lay back watching the dance in the sky for a long time, only the sound of our breath and the water lapping at the ground breaking the silence. Soon, as we watched, the moon joined the dance, moving slowly over our heads in a steady arc. The moon was only a sliver of a crescent, not nearly as powerful as it could be, but it pulled the water to us nonetheless.

Silently, we sat up and began to return to the water, which had closed the distance and was now lapping against our legs. She went first, and as the water enveloped her legs, I saw the shape of them change back into their proper form. I was emboldened by the transformation, and eagerly joined her in the water.

Shortly, we were swimming back away from the shore, our skin and hair absorbing the good, cold sea, but I found myself hesitant to dive again. I kept looking up to the sky, to the dancing spots, to the moon. She noticed, of course, and took my hand again. "We'll come back," she told me, pressing a kiss into my hand. "I promise. Now, show me how well you swim again." With a wink, she let go of my hand and dove. And I, of course, followed.

Day 3 of 31 Stories - Confessions of a Real-Life Barista

Today took a little longer to get the words out, and I'm not as happy with it as I would like. I guess that early rush of enthusiasm may be starting to wane a little, which may be a problem, considering it's all of day 3. So, erm, enjoy (with the usual caveats) day 3 - Confessions of a Real-Life Barista

Even though time in the Library didn't follow the same rules as they did out in the "real" world, even the cafe closed after a while. Grant was on the closing shift this time, which was one of his favorite times to work. There was something satisfying about clearing the clientele out and locking the door behind them, then taking a minute to breathe before cleaning up and getting ready for the next day.

It wasn't the kind of gig he'd expected when he'd answered the ad in the paper, but then, he'd been desperate. He'd been laid off from his last job at one of the mega-chain shops, and it had been long enough between jobs that he was getting to be less picky than he probably should have been. Still, he'd interviewed with the very kind, rosy-cheeked owner of the cafe, who basically just wanted to know if he knew how to make a couple of types of coffee and was fascinated by the idea of cold brew, and he'd been given a lot of paperwork to fill out before he started the next day. Things moved fast, but the pay was extraordinary, the benefits were great, they even set him up with an apartment, and he didn't have to worry about wearing a mask or quarantining so long as he stayed in the Library. It had taken a few weeks before he realized that nearly everyone he interacted with was, you know...fictional.

Clean the tables first, or sweep? Mentally he tossed a coin, and it came up tables. He hummed to himself as he prepared the bleach rags and put on his gloves. Jen, another person from what he couldn't stop calling the "real world" but she called "Prime," had been working in the cafe for a while, and she said that the gloves weren't necessary. Things didn't work in the Library they way they worked in Prime, and his skin wouldn't get dry or scratchy from the bleach they way they did back home. Grant was still skeptical, and he found himself falling into his normal habits when he didn't have someone around to tell him otherwise.

He still didn't understand why the people who worked in the cafe had to be from Prime, instead of from a book, but that seemed to be the policy for any of the places that served food in the Library. Jen had referenced some kind of manual that probably existed somewhere, and Grant was a little leery of seeking it out just yet. He wasn't sure why, but it didn't feel right to inspect things too closely. He was still convinced that this was all some kind of fever dream, and that he was likely to wake up at any moment to find himself still sleeping on his sister's couch, scrounging for change to hit a cheap fast-food joint and hoping that the phone call from the hospital wouldn't come. He winced as he thought of his father, stubborn to the end, lying in the hospital bed and still refusing to admit that the virus was as big of a deal as everyone was telling him.

Grant finished wiping down the tables mechanically, putting the seats up as he finished each table. There were some benefits to working in a location that was based in fiction - for one thing, boring chores didn't take nearly as long in writing as they did in real life, so the vast number of tables were cleaned in the blink of an eye. He tipped the bleach bucket down the sink in the kitchen, rinsing and drying as needed, and pulled out the broom and mop. Closing duties were much easier when he only had to deal with the highlights, as it were.

There were still some growing pains he was dealing with; for instance, he was unable to think the brand names of the places he'd worked or the businesses he patronized out in Prime, no matter how much he would have liked to. He didn't seem to be able to spend time just staring off into space blankly, but rather had some kind of constant narration running through his head; at least with that he got to choose what kind of voice he wanted to hear it in, and he'd had a lot of fun playing with that the first few days. He still alternated between Morgan Freeman and Dolly Parton, just because.

Satisfied that the cafe was as clean as he could get it, he finished putting his cleaning supplies away and started turning off the lights. Once he got back to his apartment, he planned to play around on his phone for a bit, maybe give his sister a call, then see what video games he wanted to play. He was grateful that Prime technology still worked in the apartments - he couldn't bear thinking about losing all the tethers to his old life. With one last sweep for anything he'd missed, he headed out of the cafe, locking the door behind him and moving swiftly toward his home. His strange, mostly fictional, possibly induced by a fever dream, home.

31 Stories in 31 Days - sure, why not??

 So, I've been fortunate enough to be able to spend a little (lot) more time working on writing-related stuff, and I came across this challenge to write 31 stories in 31 days. I spent some time with some of the members of the Lady Astronaut Club, Mary Robinette Kowal's marvelous online community, brainstorming ideas, and I figured I'd go for it. I managed day 1, yay!

The overall theme tying these together is the Infinite Library - essentially, all of fiction lives in one library, which is kinda/sorta Ygdrassil the World-Tree. I had started by asking people for ideas of genres that I could play with, because I was getting stuck, and that led to some entertaining story ideas that started right away.

There are prompts that The Writing Network (the folks running the 31 Stories challenge) are providing, and as needed or as I want, I'll use them. In the meantime? Well, enjoy* day 1 - Noir Rehab.

*Caveat for today and all other days - these are literally draft zero, fresh from my brain, no editing done. This is less "tell me what needs to be fixed" (because I know it's roughly EVERYTHING) and more "look, I put words on a page, ain't it cool?"

I didn't want to be here, but the big man upstairs had told me that I needed to show up or it would be more than my job was worth. My job was all I had left, so for the moment, it was time to swallow what little pride I had left to sit down and let some medico, some head-shrinker come talk at me for an hour. So long as I didn't shoot my mouth off or try to punch anybody, the big man said I could go back to my job, no problem.

I turned up the collar of my trench coat and lifted my hat a bit, trying to make out the number on the door in front of me. It was a good door, marbled glass taking up the top so whoever was inside could see the shape of someone outside, but not enough to know who it was. There was a little brass plaque saying "Dr. Morris, therapist" next to the door, and I rolled my eyes. If my dear mother, departed all these years, could just see me now... I beat a quick tattoo on the door and walked in when I heard the yell from the other side.

I had my back to the rest of the people in the room, pushing the door closed again, so I didn't get a good look at everyone right away. I saw that there was a coat rack next to the door, so I took off my hat and coat and paused. The rack was about half-full, which wasn't that odd. What was odd was that almost every coat and hat on the rack looked...familiar. Some of them were a little older than mine, some a little newer, but they all followed a pattern that I knew all too well.

"Don't just stand there, put your hat and coat up and take a seat," I heard behind me. The voice almost sounded like the one I heard in my head every day, but not exactly. I was almost afraid to see what I would see if I turned towards it, especially now that I could hear more people sitting in the room, shuffling their feet and clearing their throats.

I wasn't ready to deal with that just yet. I found a spot for my hat and coat, directed a rusty prayer in the vague direction of where I remembered heaven to be, and turned around to find a place to sit. I didn't look at any faces, but I could see that there were a lot of chairs set in a circle, and maybe half of them were occupied. I steered myself toward an empty spot in the circle and sat down, still forcing my eyes to remain on my shoes for the moment. I heard a little bit of snickering on one side of me, and I scowled. I didn't like being scared, but I didn't know what else to do about it. On my other side, I felt better than saw someone leaning toward me.

"Don't worry, it freaks everybody out the first time." This voice wasn't as close to mine as the other one had been, so it made it a little easier to sit up and glance up. The face that I saw was younger than I would have expected, but not quite a kid. Based on the clothes, one of the newer coats and hats must have belong to him. He put out a hand. "Jacob Miller, 2012. What about you?"

I grunted and shook his hand. "Ralph Barstow, 1952. I didn't think our type still had an audience these days, much less enough to have new people coming on." Jake had a firm handshake and looked me in the eye while he shook it, making it just a little more personal than I would have liked, myself. I recovered my hand sharpish.

"I'm a pastiche," he said matter-of-factly, and nodded at my blank look. "Everything old is new again, you know, and there are anthologies of the classic stuff being given a modern 'twist' every few years or so." He twirled his finger in the air on the word "twist." "You know how it goes, I'm sure."

It made sense. I'd heard tales about Sherlock Holmes, and all the twists that poor bastard had done, so it shouldn't have surprised me that our time had come up. "What are you doing here, then? I'd think you were set for being more, what'd they say, appropriate, than someone like me?"

Jake sighed. "They like to make sure all of us get at least one session, just to make sure we keep ourselves up to date, and it was my turn. Truth be told, it's lonely in the more modern side of Detective - not a lot of people in my branch who know much about the good old days."

I snorted, and heard a few others around the circle follow suit. I finally looked around and saw what I had known, in my head, would be there. We were all takes on the same cookie-cutter character, with our own little takes on the story. I thought I might have seen an original or two from the 30s in there, but I couldn't be too sure. A lot of us looked like they were my vintage, and we all were ticked off about being here. I nodded at everyone in a sort of general way, and they nodded back.

The door opened again, and a good-looking dame with gams to her eyes-

"Ah, I see we have some new members today!" The voice was cheerful but sharp enough to cut glass, and those eyes were locked on me as she spoke. Her luscious red-

"Mr. Barstow, 1952, is that right? I'm Dr. Helen Morris, and I'll be leading this session. I trust you understand why you've been sent to me." She held a clipboard in front of her and was tapping a pen against it as she waited for a response. Her smile was brittle, and I could feel the other guys around the circle get tense just from her presence. Apparently, kitty had claws.

"Yes, Mr. Barstow, that is exactly why you're here. 'Kitty had claws' indeed." She scribbled on her clipboard then moved into the circle, sitting down directly next to me, on the other side from Jake. "Mr. Spayed, don't you get started either," she added, pointing at another spot in the circle where another guy was snickering. Actually, now that I squinted...

"A cat?" I asked, dumbstruck. "There's a cat here, too?"

Jake rolled his eyes. "The genre got really popular for a while there. It happens." The cat-detective hissed at me, then started cleaning his paws with his tongue, muttering to his neighbor (who, as far as I could tell, was a person, but now I didn't know anything for sure). The whole time, no one else seemed to give a damn, so I tried not to, either. I focused back on the doc, who was looking at me again.

"Mr. Barstow, you are the product of a less-enlightened time," she stated flatly. It stung, I had to admit. "It's not your fault, obviously, but we've noticed that more and more of the noir detective types are going un-read and weakening the overall Detective branch of the Library because society has moved on in its depiction of women, and you and your subtype remain in the dark ages." Everything she said was matter-of-fact, with no emotion, and between that and her pale hair and eyes, it was too easy to see she was an ice-cold b-

"That, right there. That description you were giving me in your narration. That's what we're talking about." She interrupted me smoothly, but it still made me jump. I didn't spend much time outside of my own universe, so I wasn't used to people being able to hear what I was thinking. There's something wrong when there's no place that's safe, not even the inside of a fellow's head. I swallowed hard, though, I nodded.

"Now, you knew your mother, isn't that right?" Doc flipped through the pages on her clipboard, and I'm guessing that meant she had some kind of file on me. I cleared my throat, figuring it was time to make things easier on her.

"Yeah, Ma and I were close until the cancer got her a few years ago." Murmurs of sympathy came up around the room, which was kind of nice. "I tried to take care of her best I could once Pops was gone, and it was just me and her."

"Very good. Now something I want you, all of you, to keep in mind." Doc stopped focusing just on me, which was a relief, and turned to face the rest of the room, too. "Your dear sainted mothers, aunts, sisters, fathers, uncles, and brothers, whoever and whatever raised you to be the person you are today, they deserved the utmost respect, didn't they?" Everyone around the circle nodded, looking at the doc like she had two heads. I was right with them. Of course Ma deserved respect! What kind of question was that?

"Well, what I want you all to remember is that every person, every character you meet, they are the sainted relative or dear friend of someone who feels the same way about them that you feel about the people who raised you. They all deserve that same level of respect from you, the same way your people deserve that level of respect from everyone else." She looked around the room again, meeting all of our eyes, but only until we looked away in shame. It didn't take long for me, I know that for sure.

Once she'd given us all the evil eye, she sighed and her face softened. "It's not easy, I know. It's not a short trip. But you have to remember, every investigation starts with that first clue, right? And that was your first clue. Now, let's repeat our method of discovery, and start working through the rest of our case." She put the clipboard down on the floor and stood up, holding her hands out to direct the rest of us up, too. Like a bunch of choir boys, we did as we were told.

"'Method of discovery'?" I muttered to Jake as we climbed to our feet. He just snickered softly.

"Now, repeat with me," Doc said, raising her hands up to the sky. Skeptically, I watched as the other people in the circle, even Jake, followed suit.

"Grant me the vision
To find the real clues
Through the red herrings;
To trust the right people,
And not those who will betray;
To recognize that I am not my job,
And I have worth without a case;
To remember to eat,
And that self-care matters;
And that some lost items
Simply won't be found."

It was depressing as hell, but somehow made me feel better in a way I couldn't define. Jake didn't meet my eyes as we sat down, so I think he was feeling the same way. Just what had the big man sent me to?

"It's all crap, you know," one of the older guys called out. We all faced him, and he sat with his arms crossed over his chest. Doc took a deep breath and put on a bright smile again.

"Why do you say that, Mr. Lawson?" Her voice had a little bit of that edge to it again, but it didn't seem quite so sharp this time. I exchanged a glance with Jake, who made a face. "Stay out of it, Ralph," he muttered, putting his hands up. "They've been fighting like that since I first showed up."

"'Why do you say that, Mr. Lawson?'" the old guy mimicked. "I say that because it's crap. I am my job, and my job is me. If I'm not there, then things go wrong. Kids go missing and they don't get found. Dames like you get their jewels stolen and nobody finds them. Or your man runs off with some painted hussy, and you don't ever know what happens, because you don't have me go to find him and get pictures of him and the new missus and you're just left to wonder. You need me. And none of what you're saying about people not reading us means anything. They always read us. We're CLASSICS."

There were some nods around the circle, and I had to admit that the old guy had made some good points. Still, it didn't quite feel right. I raised my hand a little, even with Jake shushing me. "Excuse me? I know I'm new here, but I know they only read some of us these days. I'm from the 50s, and I know I don't get taken down from the shelf nearly as often as I used to. I think I've been out of print for, I don't know, thirty years or so?" A couple of other guys who looked to be a similar vintage nodded. "I've got a buddy who works in the Library proper on one of those teams, you know, and he comes back with the stories about how readers in Prime just don't want to hear about, what's she call it, 'old white guys in trench coats calling everybody kid and dame,' I think that was it." It had stung when she said it, and I could see some of those words hitting home with some of the others.

"Not that we all fit that category, obviously," I added, recognizing a few faces that didn't fall into the 'old white guy' mold, "but I think I lot of them are a newer vintage than I am, at least. Things change all the time. The general idea is there, and that's a classic, there's no doubt. But maybe there's something to be said for updating a little bit. You don't keep wearing the same trilby once it's fallen apart, do you?"

Lawson stood up, and I saw that he was not quite so young as he'd originally seemed. At least, he as a character wasn't. His clothes, though, looked like they hadn't seen a lot of love in years. One of his shoes had a hole in the upper, and his sleeve had a rip that had been inexpertly fixed. Poor guy had probably tried to do it himself. Still, he had a spine straight as a tree and he had to be at least two or three inches taller than me. If this got physical, and it sure looked like it was going that way, I was pretty sure I knew who would win. I was glad I hadn't worn my new shirt for this gig, that's all I'm saying.

He stood there for a minute, and you could have heard a pin drop in the room. Finally, he looked around the circle and seemed to catch on to the fact that no one else was going to stand up with him. His shoulders fell a little, but he kept his head up. "To hell with this, and with you," he spat, directing the last bit at the doc as he stormed over to the coat rack. He grabbed a hat and coat and was out the door before anyone even thought about following.

Doc Morris sighed. "Well, I think I knew that was coming, so that's OK. He's one of the originals, so it's only to be expected that he'll be resistant to change." She smoothed her skirt over her legs (I forced myself to think in only the most basic terms, the way I'd want someone to think of dear Ma), then she picked up her clipboard again. "Let's get through an exercise before our time's up, shall we?"

I looked back at Jake and mouthed, Exercise? He rolled his eyes and grinned. You'll see, he mouthed back. This didn't sound promising. Sure enough, Doc Morris told us to split off into pairs and get ready to role play a scene she'd written. She even paired me up with the damn cat, so I knew she had to be punishing me. The cat didn't seem too happy about it, either, but he was a good sport in the end. Still, pretending to be a cat stuck in a tree while an actual cat pretended to be a firefighter come to rescue me has to be one of those experiences that I'll never want to think about again, and will probably pop up in my poor, abused brain at the worst possible moment. Even Doc Morris couldn't hide a smile, and Jake? That bastard was laughing his fool head off, along with all the rest of them. 

I had to admit, though, it was nice to be in a room with people who kind of knew what it was like, being a private eye. We shared something in common, even if most everything else was a little different. There was even a space man! His hat was a helmet, but it folded up into the trilby so he could still wear it while walking around and not in space. That was nifty.

Things ended not long after we did our little skits, thankfully. The cat and I (the cat was Christopher, but he actually didn't mind being called 'the cat' all the time - said it was easier to tell if someone was talking about him) were the last ones to go, so everyone left on a laugh, at least. Doc Morris gave me a piece of paper with a copy of the method of discovery on it, and I folded it up and put it in my billfold. It had sounded kind of dumb, true, but there were one or two good things to remember. I shook her hand just like I would a man, and she rolled her eyes a little when I did.

"You don't have to specify that you shook my hand the way you would a man, Mr. Barstow," she said in a friendly but tired voice. I winced - it was still so strange to have someone hear what was in my head - but I nodded.

"I'll...I'll work on it, Doc. Thanks." I nodded to her and headed over to the coat rack. Jake was waiting for me there, but most everyone else was gone. It made it easier to see what was left. My coat was shoved to the side; since it had been on top most everyone else's, they had to push it aside to get to theirs underneath it. I pulled it off the hook and shook it out, draping it over my arm, and reached up to get my hat. I paused, my hand in mid-air, and Jake cocked his head.

"What's wrong?" I just started laughing and pointed at the beaten piece of cloth left behind.

"Bastard took my hat."

We made it! Now what?

 I could start with the usual "is this thing on?" and apologies for being gone for so long, but I'm not going to do that this time. You who are reading this (both of you) are aware that I don't always keep up to date with things, and you've come to accept that. I'm hoping to stay more on top of this blog this year, but we'll see.

With that auspicious beginning... I want to talk about 2020. No, come back, don't run away! I know 2020 did a lot of us dirty, and we're going to be recovering from the damage for ages to come. I also know that it isn't truly over - no matter how much we want to blame 2020 for everything that went wrong in our lives last year (and believe me, I absolutely did), there are still a bunch of things that we're having to deal with now and will have to continue handling for months or possibly years. The work's not done, but we're getting there and moving forward.

What I really want to talk about is coping mechanisms from 2020. So, I personally have generalized anxiety and clinical depression, so my brain is on edge and cranky in the best of times, much less when the world is on fire and has a raging pandemic. I also have some difficulty in focusing on one or two things for long periods of time, particularly when the anxiety is staying at an 11 at all times. Not being able to focus, but knowing that you need to focus on something to get it done, is one of those cycles that can just lead to running a track to nowhere in your head and exhausting yourself without getting anything out of it.

One thing that I found last year that helped was a small, discrete project that I could finish and feel a sense of accomplishment. The dopamine hit of completing something is such a powerful feeling. It is something that gets my focus running on one particular track for a little while, and gives it a little more direction. After that, I am more likely to be able to focus on something a little bigger (like the stuff I get paid to do), and keep the anxiety on simmer for a little while longer.

My preferred type of project is something tangible, as it adds to that sweet, sweet accomplishment dopamine to hold the completed item in my hands. I learned how to cross stitch and crochet 30+ years ago, and while they may not always be the most useful of skills, they certainly help when it comes to small handcrafts that don't take long to finish. My new discovery last year was blackwork, and that discovery came through a free stitch-a-long from Peppermint Purple. It was set up incredibly well, so that each week, the pattern released a new block that contained one motif. It was small, self-contained, and didn't require much by way of resources (either physical or mental). I got started on the 2020 stitch-a-long later in the year and so still have a little way to go to finish it, but I'm right on top of things for 2021. (The stitch-a-long is free again this year, and available through the Peppermint Purple Facebook page - you can join any time!)

The beginning of the 2021 Peppermint Purple 2021 stitch-a-long, with bonus! cat hair, of course

I want to spend some time this year focusing on how to move forward in this new normal where we find ourselves. 2020 did a number on society, and nearly every part of our daily lives is different than it had been in 2019. Some of those differences are going to stick; some may go "back to normal," but it won't look the same way it did before. We've all been changed by the pandemic, quarantine, lock-downs, and all the other things that caused 2020 to be a year that did the work of a decade. Whether it was the worst year in your life, or one of the best you can remember, your life doesn't look the same. 

Humans, in general, aren't great with change, particularly a lot of change all at once. We have to get out of the mindset that things are different "for now" and figure out how to handle things going forward, and I hope to provide a bit of insight in some coping mechanisms that I found useful. Everyone is different (shocking, I know), so what works for me may not work for you. Still, I hope it gives you something to think about and some ideas for how you can find your new normal.

Take your meds, drink some water, and wear a mask! You are loved.

This little light of mine

I've spent the last few months away from social media, in large part because I just didn't know what to say. So much has happened in such a short amount of time, and it felt like everyone who could was saying something loudly and at length. I didn't think that anything I could say would add anything to the numerous dialogues that were happening, so I read and watched, and kept to myself (or a small circle of friends).

Then today, I logged into my Tumblr for the first time in weeks, and I notice that I have quite a few notifications. This is not a normal thing for me, so I take a look at what's bringing people to my blog. Turns out, there are a couple of posts about hope and not letting the world take your light away that are still resonating with folks.

I don't pretend to have a huge audience - I'm one of literally millions (if not billions) of people on the internet who type their thoughts out and send them into the abyss of cyberspace. But I guess what I have tossed out there has been useful, on occasion, to someone who needed it. It would be incredibly arrogant to say that I have to keep writing, because "my people need me" *dramatic pose*, but it does seem a little hypocritical if I talk a big game about hope and optimism and then give up myself.

So, here I am, tentatively waving from my corner of the web, with a cup of tea in one hand and an empty seat at the table. It's been a rough few months, and we've lost a lot of people that never should have been lost. But right now, we are here, and we have the chance to make tomorrow better than today. What do you say?